Peninsula independent bookstores try to compete by selling e-books

Clark Kepler, owner of Kepler’s Books and Magazines in Menlo Park, is now selling e-books through Google’s eBookstore.

Brick and mortar independent bookstores filled with carefully curated bookshelves are still around — even in Silicon Valley, where the latest technologies and innovations are rewriting the business of book publishing.

Even so, their customers are increasingly curling up with Kindles, iPads and Nooks. Independent bookstore owners know how this story will end: survival means getting into the e-book business.

“Amazon has really killed us over the years” by undercutting bookstore prices on its online store, said Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. “So there’s this resistance to online [bookselling] because that’s what Amazon does, and we’re not going to be like Amazon. [But], that’s ridiculous. We have to sell books online.” Read More >>